Next Wednesday, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai will testify before the Senate Commerce Committee about their policies on misinformation, moderation, and bias in tech.
When that hearing is over, however, it won’t be too long before Zuckerberg and Dorsey find themselves back in the hot seat.
That’s because the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to subpoena the two social media founders on Thursday. The 12-0 decision consisted solely of Republicans, as Democrats on the committee boycotted the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, where this vote took place.
The vote to subpoena Zuckerberg and Dorsey comes in the wake of Facebook’s and Twitter’s decision to limit the spread of a controversial New York Post article.
The Post’s report alleged that Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, organized a meeting with a Ukranian energy executive and his father when Joe Biden was vice president. The piece was based on emails supposedly obtained off of an abandoned laptop hard drive.
On the day the article was published, Facebook announced it was “reducing distribution” of the report. Twitter blocked sharing of the piece completely. The idea from the social media companies was to give fact checkers and other reporters at third-party outlets time to authenticate the claims.
It has since come to light that New York Post’s own staff reporters distanced themselves from the report due to credibility concerns. However, the actions from Facebook and Twitter set off a firestorm on conservative media regarding conservative censorship – something the right has complained about over and over again.
Regardless of the claims of anti-conservative bias and supposedly unfair actions taken by the social media giant, the report about Biden’s emails still went viral on Facebook. Twitter CEO Dorsey has also admitted that the company’s actions blocking the link outright were flawed.
Still, Republicans would like to grill Zuckerberg and Dorsey on the issue. Mashable will update this piece with a date for the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing as soon as it’s scheduled.
And don’t forget, Google’s CEO joins Facebook and Twitter’s founders on Oct. 28 for the Senate Commerce Committee hearing.